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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28458906">Fade Into The Thought Of Coming Back To You</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dikhotomia/pseuds/Dikhotomia'>Dikhotomia</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>1000 Prompts Attempt 2: The (Slightly) Unorganized Mess [10]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Trek, Star Trek: Discovery</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, But she's trying, Character Study, F/F, Missing Scene, Of the Star Trek Sort, Philippa Is Not Okay, Post Terra Firma 2, Psychic Bond, Thanks to the Guardian, What-If</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 23:35:03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,662</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28458906</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dikhotomia/pseuds/Dikhotomia</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"Why would you give this to me?" Georgiou asks finally, head canted to one side. "Is this your way of recycling your trash?" She still closes her fingers around it, rubbing her thumb across the pips formed into the metal. Different from the Terran badge she still kept hidden in a pocket or in her quarters. </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>Michael gives her a look, pursing her lips. "I thought...maybe you'd like it."</i>
</p>
<p>OR</p>
<p>After returning to the past, Philippa learns to cope. (Or she tries to.)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Michael Burnham/Mirror Philippa Georgiou</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>1000 Prompts Attempt 2: The (Slightly) Unorganized Mess [10]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1594495</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>37</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Fade Into The Thought Of Coming Back To You</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>After starting out with fluff I'm now back to drop a whole lot of feelings. There's some call outs to the Discovery book 'Die Standing' because reading that just made me absolutely have to write this. Also because I'm exploring the 'new' Philippa she might seem a bit off from canon and it's done entirely on purpose.</p>
<p>This is also another entry into my 1000 prompts series with prompt 21 "Trade" and 22 "Stripes."</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Going back to the past -- the present, the now that Discovery had left behind -- from the future had been less jarring than Georgiou had initially believed when she stepped through that...whatever it was. She'd drifted for a while, from freighter to Starship to shuttle, regaining the lay of the time and figuring just how long she had actually been gone. </p>
<p>A year, she found, and those who recognize her comment about how she was said to have died -- again -- when the Discovery was destroyed. The story is curious, but one she realizes must have been made up among those who knew the truth, a way to explain things away without letting the rest of Starfleet know the truth of what happened. About Control, the sphere data, the Red Angel. </p>
<p>The wormhole.</p>
<p>Georgiou smiles, edged and sharp and says instead of the truth; "I guess I have nine lives, though by now I'm down to at least seven." </p>
<p>She trades silence for peppered questions, saying nothing no matter how much the higher ups prod her, yank at her chain with remarks. "I heard rumors you liked to hear yourself talk," one says, amused rather than rude -- he knew better, knew what kind of person was sitting in the room with him, no matter how much she might have changed -- eyeing her over the edge of his data slate. </p>
<p>"I do," Georgiou replies, meeting his eyes."But not about this." She feigns a haunted look, falling silent and averting her eyes to the edge of the desk, studying the chip she can see in the polished wood. The office feels stuffy suddenly, suffocating and weighing on her lungs in a way she wants to escape from.</p>
<p>"About what?" he prompts, trying to wheedle through her line of defense, hoping that maybe she might slip up in a moment of perceived weakness. </p>
<p>Georgiou's eyes cut back to him. "About the destruction of Discovery." She almost wants to smile and tell him he's not remotely clever enough to get her to talk about what he's digging for, but her secrets are just that--her secrets. She has dozens of them now, all neatly tucked away in the various corners of her mind to stay until the day she sets feet into her grave for real.</p>
<p>"How, exactly, did you survive?" He asks next, head tilting slightly. "It was said you were onboard at the time, did you leave for some reason?"</p>
<p><em>Did you run away to save yourself?</em> He doesn't say, but she can see it in his eyes. She doesn't appreciate it, lips drawing back from teeth as she clenches her jaw, her expression turning sour. For just a second he thinks he has her, he thinks again that now in her anger she might explain to keep her pride.</p>
<p>"That's classified," she replies, terse, swallowing down fury she wants little more than to feed. "You know Section 31 and it's secrets, everything's hidden behind a mile of red tape and non-answers."</p>
<p>"So I assume it's also 'classified' as to why you've been MIA for an entire year?" He's getting as frustrated as she is--his kindly, patient expression chipping at the edges the longer she stonewalls him in typical Section 31 fashion.</p>
<p>"Yes," she replies, simply. She stands at that, hands resting against her hips as she stares down at him, eyebrow raising. "This is the part where we stop wasting one another's time," she says, turning away. "Lest you burst a blood vessel." She leaves before he can come back with a response, the door hissing shut behind her and plunging her into the every day life of whatever Starbase she'd ended up on.</p>
<p>--------</p>
<p>She's confined to quarters for a time where boredom and silence undercut the few people who come and go trying to pry her for information she continues not to give. She holds her tongue between her teeth, expression cool, eyes set somewhere just off center of the most recent visitor. Another Admiral and she finds herself suddenly missing Cornwell and her straight-laced nature and sharp lectures.</p>
<p>Had she still been around, no doubt Georgiou would have found herself in the <em>Pacifica's</em> brig as Cornwell had promised all that time ago. At this point, she doubts it would be much of an improvement, but at least there she could ask Cornwell to keep people from harassing her.</p>
<p>"You're wasting your time," she says, clenching her jaw against the yawn threatening. "No matter how many of you show up I'm still going to give the same answers."</p>
<p>It was automatic at this point, repeated so many times she didn't need to waste precious mental resorces to hold a conversation. Not when she was repeating the same words over and over and over ad  nauseam until whoever the hell it was finally stopped sending people.</p>
<p>
  <em>The stripes on his uniform, the press of pips underneath her finger--a fleeting memory of the moment Michael pressed it into her palm, standing close enough to her their shoulders brush. She almost wants to ask why Michael's even given it to her, lips drawn back into a half smirk and the words on the tip of her tongue--</em>
</p>
<p>"Agent Georgiou."</p>
<p>She inhales, eyes lifting to his face. "What?" </p>
<p>He sighs and she realizes it's the same man from the office whose name she hadn't bothered to remember. "We've been informed by Section 31 we can no longer hold you here," he says after a delay, strained like he's pulling his own tooth out -- a thought far more entertaining than anything else he might say -- eyes diverted to his data slate. "So you're free to go, Ash Tyler is looking forward to seeing you again."</p>
<p>"Oh," she says, raising her eyebrows. "So he's still alive is he?"</p>
<p>The look the Admiral gives her is as much exasperation as it is suspicion. "He thought you might say that."</p>
<p>She stands, stretching out the stiffness that had begun to try and make itself at home in the base of her spine. "He knows me well enough, so I suppose I'm to report to him then?" It's more of a formality, asking him, because she already knows the answer. Tyler would want her back, would grill her about what she had seen and she'd tell him only what she thought was appropriate.<br/>When she decided to come back.</p>
<p>"Yes, though at your leisure."</p>
<p>Which could easily be 'never.' </p>
<p>------</p>
<p>
  <em>"Why would you give this to me?" Georgiou asks finally, head canted to one side. "Is this your way of recycling your trash?" She still closes her fingers around it, rubbing her thumb across the pips formed into the metal. Different from the Terran badge she still kept hidden in a pocket or in her quarters. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Michael gives her a look, pursing her lips. "I thought...maybe you'd like it."</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Georgiou's knee-jerk response falls flat as Michael plucks the black badge she has pinned to her lapel off, rolling it over in her palm. "Because I want this." She watches her while the Commander runs her fingers over the name and serial number engraved on the back of it, looking at it with a quiet sadness Georgiou associates with a woman long dead.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>"Don't you have her badge?" she asks, crossing her arms.</em>
</p>
<p><em>Slowly Michael looks up at her, studying her face. "Yes," she replies, closing her fingers around the carved metal in her palm. "But I don't have </em>yours<em> and I needed to change that. Just like you have hers...but not </em>mine.<em>"</em></p>
<p>
  <em>There's no remark, no return to keep face or excuse this moment of weakness on her part. So she's force to revel in it, holding Michael's badge in her hand and staring into the younger woman's eyes, a kind of agony not remotely associated with her...aliment burning in her chest.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>"Philippa?" Michael whispers, reaching out to touch her forearm. The silence stretches between them after that, so long it becomes tense enough the younger woman almost looks afraid to try and speak again.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Afraid she might shatter it like the fragile glass it is.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Georgiou scoffs. "Fine, I'll keep your old badge and you can keep mine. I've no use for it now anyway."</em>
</p>
<p>------</p>
<p>In hindsight, she did need that badge. The one she had received from the future Starfleet remains hidden underneath her coat, likely little more than a useless hunk of fancy metal. She hadn't tested to see if the tricorder or the site to site transportation still worked. It had crossed her mind to try it now that she was free from confinement and allowed back into the universe at large, but she hadn't found enough time and enough space void of people to actually go through with it.</p>
<p>So it fades from her mind as she travels the old fashioned way, transport to transport, occasionally engaging in entertaining chatter with people who pique enough of her interest. In the past it might have been more than just drinks and talks and a game of cards, but now that's all it was. Quiet company, and the haunting feeling of loss hanging over her head.</p>
<p>Georgiou always despised the feeling right from the first moment it had inserted itself between her ribs and stuck there like a dagger. Ironically the situation was similar, both involving a loss of a version of Michael. She had told herself she was done with the feeling after San, after the absolutely suffocating weight that had threatened to crush her as she knelt by his body, painting her hands in his blood.</p>
<p>But she was wrong.</p>
<p>"What have you done to me, Michael?" she says under her breath, staring out at the blurring stars streaking by outside the window in her quarters. "All this pain I've felt has all been due to you."<br/>Looking down, she turns the badge in her hand over in her fingers, tracing the edges of the name. "If our bond is really as you say it is, we will meet again one day." Somehow, someway. One day she would claw her way back to the future come hell or high water.</p>
<p>For now she had to focus on healing, eyes drawn to the bracelet still fastened around her wrist. Still green. Just one more reminder of what she had to leave behind, or what had left her behind. She thinks about tearing it off, slotting a finger underneath the band of it. Pauses.</p>
<p>It stays.</p>
<p>------</p>
<p>Earth is different from Terra in many ways, brighter, livelier. She sees it for what it is, standing silently in the midst of a thousand curious fledgling Starfleet officers. It's alive and free, anything but the oppressive, militant nature of her home universe. Georgiou feels startlingly out of place, staring up at the buildings surrounding her, ignoring the whispers of curious passerby's.</p>
<p>
  <em>Hey isn't that Captain Georgiou? I thought she was dead--</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>--why does she look so lost?</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>I heard they found her on some Klingon prison ship, maybe she's just relieved to be home finally---</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>---but they said she died again when Discovery was destroyed---</em>
</p>
<p>Her eyes shift, focusing out of the corner of one on the two cadets closest by her, both gasping at the realization they'd been noticed finally. They stand there, wide eyed, hands pressed to their mouths.</p>
<p>"Sorry!" one says, cringing.</p>
<p>"If you're going to talk about someone," she drawls, eyes lifting from them and back to the building in front of her. "Do it out of their earshot."</p>
<p>"Um, Captain?"</p>
<p>She glances back, surrendering herself to the fact that they're about to pry into things she doesn't want them to pry into. Just like everyone else had before, just like everyone would continue to do so long as they recognized her as the Captain who supposedly cheated death.</p>
<p><em>Twice now</em>, she thinks wryly, raising an eyebrow. "Yes?"</p>
<p>"Do you...have any advice for us?"</p>
<p>They're hopeful, looking up to someone Starfleet no doubt considered a legend from all the things she had read about <em>Captain Philippa Georgiou</em> and her service on various Starships all the way up to her captaincy of the <em>Shenzhou</em>.</p>
<p>"Always have hope," she says, balking internally at her own words. She wonders for a shocking moment who she is anymore--The Emperor or The Captain. Or perhaps an amalgamation between the two struggling to find a path to walk finally while still staying true to her own ideals. "And learn to trust others around you, your crew, your friends. When things get bad, and they will, they'll be the ones you can rely on the most."</p>
<p>
  <em>I sound like Michael.</em>
</p>
<p>She turns to face them then, meeting their awed expressions.</p>
<p>
  <em>--I've seen a lot of death in my time, but I learned to hold onto hope through it all. Because without hope? What are we?---</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>"Philippa said something like that to me once, it's advice I started to live by."</em>
</p>
<p>"Thank you," the cadets say, and she inclines her head slightly, watching as they leave.</p>
<p>Georgiou absently reaches in her coat for the badge still resting against her lapel, a desire to disappear resurfacing. She leaves the old fashioned way again, hands in her coat pockets, stride tall and confident to hide the turmoil underneath.</p>
<p>-------</p>
<p>"Where have you been all this time?" Ash asks her as she steps into whatever the hell it is Section 31 calls a 'home base,' his eyes on her where he stands by a table. "No, wait don't tell me, because you won't."</p>
<p>Georgiou pauses, eyebrow arching. "I was on Earth," she says, relishing in the surprise that flicks across his face. "Malaysia, to be exact." She doesn't explain why she was there, because she's already given him more than he expects.</p>
<p>"Why? Did you want to see how your counterpart lived?"</p>
<p>"I didn't come back for an inquisition, Tyler," she drawls, dropping into a nearby chair and kicking her feet up on the desk. "You should be glad I even decided to come back at all, I could have gone rogue."</p>
<p>Could have, but the perceived weight of Michael's disappointment in her kept her from entertaining it beyond a flicker of a moment. She didn't struggle to change so hard only to slide right back down into bad habits, not that she would ever be as good and straight-laced as any Starfleet officer. That was why she was here, after all, with the misfits and the freaks.</p>
<p>"How...are they?" Ash asks after a long moment, lowering his voice until Georgiou can just barely hear him over the ambient noise of the base around them.</p>
<p>"Adapting," she replies, meeting his eyes. "It hasn't been easy on them...any of us."</p>
<p>Ash shifts closer, leaning his hip against the table right beside where she still lounges, arms folded behind her head, ankles hooked. "Georgiou, why are you here? How are you here?"</p>
<p>"I don't know," she answers, and it's as much truth as it is an evasion of the actual fact. "And it's too much of a headache to try and explain. I am, that's all there is to it." </p>
<p>The look he gives her is a dubious one, brows knit. "Alright," he says, holding up his hands. "I'll take your word for it."</p>
<p>"Smart man," she says, leaning back in her chair. "Now what do you have for me?"</p>
<p>"Normally half a dozen debriefings, but you've been accosted enough since you got back. So...nothing right now, not until I can shove by all the red tape and get you assigned to field work again." He shrugs in response to her exasperated eye-roll. "Sorry."</p>
<p>"That's fine," she murmurs, looking up at the ceiling. "I have something else I want to do anyway. Oh. I need another badge."</p>
<p>"What happened to your other one?" He asks, eyeing her across the table.</p>
<p>"Michael has it."</p>
<p>--------</p>
<p>The <em>USS Shenzhou</em>-- or the frozen, drifting wreckage of it -- isn't much different from the <em>ISS Shenzhou</em>. The hallways -- the ones she can navigate -- are all similar, leading her to places she remembers walking with her Michael on her various visits or trips. She can't live in those memories anymore, can't drift back and think on days that were 'happier' in the beginning.</p>
<p>It's just memory now.</p>
<p>She wonders if her counterpart walked the same circuits with Michael, talking about whatever topics they did. Missions, theories, or maybe just life. She wonders how it would have differed she she strolls through, grav boots humming each time her foot falls against the aged metal. "What was it like for you?" she asks, pausing outside the Captain's quarters. "I suppose it's foolish of me to be asking now, after having refused your memory for so long."</p>
<p>Georgiou steps in to the room, standing in the center of it and looking around. It's much less extravagant from the ISS, more homey and personable. She can almost see her living her life in this room, getting ready in the mornings or coming back at the end of a shift.</p>
<p>She finds her way to the Commander's room next, leaning against the door-frame and staring out at the expanse of space the missing wall offers. "Well, this is a mess," she says, shifting her weight slightly. What's left is more spartan, an echo of the woman Michael used to be before she came out of her shell fully.</p>
<p>She goes. </p>
<p>Finds her way up through the bridge, stands and stares out the cracked class into the binary stars that had been the start of all this, into the wreckage of both Federation and Klingon that still drifted here in this massive ship graveyard. </p>
<p>Philippa feels as though she's chasing ghosts, both her own and of those that had left her behind.</p>
<p>The ready room is her last stop, gingerly picking her way over broken glass and bent metal to the desk still in the corner, coated with ice, eyes lifting across the trinkets that survived this long. Most of them are in bad states of decay and would break if she so much as touched them, so she just observes. She recognizes a lot of it from various things she saw during her trip to Malaysia, hours spent wandering streets and coping with just how damn hot it was.</p>
<p>Carefully she steps around the desk and right up to the shelves, turning back to look out at the ruined office. </p>
<p>Georgiou thinks she understands herself a little bit more.</p>
<p>-----</p>
<p>"Philippa--"</p>
<p>It's not a voice she ever expected to hear again and she turns with it, thinking it would be nothing more than another echo. Except it isn't, except she isn't in her quarters anymore, the real chill of the planet she walked away from Michael on seeping back into her bones.</p>
<p>"Michael?" She whispers, squnting. "How-?"</p>
<p>"I made a trade with the Guardian," Michael replies, making her way over. "It's just a dream, really, but I...I needed to see you again."</p>
<p>"What did you trade?" Georgiou asks, meeting the younger woman halfway. There's something in between them, Michael's hands pressed against it as she looks at her, tears in her eyes.</p>
<p>"Don't worry about it," she replies, smiling. And immediately Georgiou worries.</p>
<p>"Michael--"</p>
<p>"Just trust me."</p>
<p>Her jaw tenses, but she drops the topic, realizing that the harder she pushes Michael the more the other woman will refuse to talk. She lets her keep this secret as she steps up to the invisible barrier, lifting her own hands to press against where Michael's rest still. "Keep your secrets then, stubborn girl."</p>
<p>Michael laughs, lowering her head. "I've missed you, it hasn't even been that long but..."</p>
<p>Georgiou shakes her head, forcing a smile she doesn't feel. "Really? I only been gone a few weeks and here you are, already in a mess. What am I going to do with you?" </p>
<p>Another laugh, this one choked. The younger woman's breath shuddering hard on an inhale. "I know...I know. I just...I knew it was going to be hard but--"</p>
<p>It's easy to finish the thought. It feels like a part of her is missing.</p>
<p>
  <em>Gold stripes underneath her fingers, a straight line pattern she can count from memory. Michael's body warm between her and the metal of one of Discovery's hallways. They're too close for being out in the middle of everything, pressed into an alcove and desperately exchanging kisses and touches. "A year," Michael whispers, fingers on the back of her neck, pulling Georgiou closer when she might normally push her away. "A year--"</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>"Hush, darling," Georgiou murmurs, trading breath before she's pressed against her again, tongue hot in her mouth. Worry about it all later. For now they could feel complete again.</em>
</p>
<p>"I wish you could have stayed," Michael says, shaking her out of her memory. "I wish there was more I could have done."</p>
<p>"You've done enough," Georgiou cuts in, leaning closer. "I'll find my way back on my own. There was so much to do there, so much potential. I can't just leave all that be and not figure out a way to exploit it." She smirks, Michael gives her a look. "Not in the way you think, or maybe exactly in the way you think."</p>
<p>They both laugh. </p>
<p>"You have changed...but you also really haven't," Michael comments a few moments later, staring up at her. </p>
<p>"I wouldn't be me if I changed completely," she replies, straightening slightly. "If you expect me to become some goody two shoes you're shit out of luck." She could accept she wasn't going to ever be able to rebuild her Empire, she could accept that to exist here she had to make different choices and fit herself into the mold better. "This is as good at it gets."</p>
<p>"I know," Michael says, practically grinning. "And I'm proud."</p>
<p>She wakes up alone and it takes her a period of time longer than she's used to before she finally rises and begins her day.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>How did Michael make that deal to see Philippa? Who knows. Sometimes it's best to leave things unexplained.</p>
<p> Come catch me on <a href="https://twitter.com/modulatechaos">Twitter</a> if you want to.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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